GDC is kicking off over in San Francisco this week, so if ever there was a venue to announce a new add-on—or even confirmation of the name—that would be it.

The forum-poster at NeoGAF, by the name of Ichinisan, reckons the pictures he saw of the nunchuk included an analog stick, plus X and O buttons, along with L1 and L2 buttons under the D-Pad. The wand-shaped Arc meanwhile apparently has "one very big button on top" (no word if s/he meant the big glowing globe, or something else), and X, O, triangle and square buttons. The trigger is the 'T' command, according to this mysterious poster—who could very well be full of shit, as he's just a junior member of the forums. He does comment that "it's actually long, not like the Wii Nunchuk"—which measures 22.9 x 17.8 x 5.7cm. [NeoGAF via VG247 via TechRadar]

As Tom Petersen, Nvidia's director of technical management, explains in the video, the GTX 480 shines when it's tessellation time. During the tessellation-intensive parts of the benchmark, Nvidia's card outpaces ATI's considerably, though at other points they're neck and neck.

It seems obvious that Nvidia would choose something that really played to the GTX 480's strengths for its video debut, so we're hoping that the card lives up to our expectations for insane speeds when it shows up in the wild and people start running their own tests. [YouTube - Thanks Doug]

Not only is the game itself playable on all three platforms, but the session is maintained when you move from device to device: if you're playing on your Xbox and have to run out the door, you'll be on the same level when you fire it up on your Windows Phone 7 Series phone. Basically, you'll never have an excuse not to be gaming.

I'm sure this is very exciting to some of you and a little scary to others. Regardless of its potential for crippling your productivity and taking out your social life at the knees, it's pretty amazing stuff. Presumably we will be seeing more cool tidbits like this in the next few weeks when MIX and CTIA roll around. [Engadget]

Darina and Niko, we all want to marry you now. Happy life! [Offbeatbride via Boing Boing via Twitter]

Gordon Freeman with an Apple logo stamped into his chest and the Heavy coming straight out of an iPod commercial here are actually saying quite a lot. Yes, they're pointing at releases of Half-Life and Team Fortress 2 for Mac, probably announced at the Game Developers Conference later this month. (Well, hopefully.) If they really are teasing Mac releases of those franchises, that's saying something huge about Valve, and their decision to adopt Mac as a full-fledged platform. I mean, Valve hasn't even touched the PS3, and now they're developing for Mac?

Steam for Mac would be one thing: It's the best digital delivery for PC games around (well, except when my pre-load for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 never showed up), and gaining a foothold on the Mac for distribution would make a certain level of sense, even if Valve wasn't developing Mac games themselves. (Though it's also inherently fascinating that the two truest PC gaming companies, in a sense, Valve and Blizzard, are now developing for the Mac, if Valve's really onboard. )

If I could play TF2 on my MacBook Pro without having to boot into Windows, keep all of my Steam settings and games intact and synced across platforms (without repurchasing!), I just might need to change my pants. PC gaming isn't dying, apparently, it's moving to Macs. (That's a joke.) [Kotaku, Mac Rumors, MacNN, Shack News, Macworld]

Moore, president of EA Sports, is looking for how to squeeze an extra $5 out of every Madden player. You can already buy new uniforms, old stadiums and player attribute boosts for the current crop of Madden games. But what's next? In this constant bleeding of the consumer, could they offer up new playbooks? Could they charge you for new teams? How much of this stuff was designed to be put into the game and then sliced out to be sold seperately?

To be sure, a lot of DLC is great. Additional missions in action games, made after the game was released as an extra chunk of gameplay for the hardcore, is wonderful. But when we're seeing it being used more and more as a tool to screw over used-game buyers and to sell us what clearly should have been part of the original game, publishers are going too far. Where's the line? [IGN via Kotaku]

Sweet, innocent little Wii, which never hurts anyone with downtime—just a few broken plasmas when it first came onto the scene—has odds of just 2/1. They're taking bets now, with the next console to suffer a "global glitch" that gets reported on the UK Sky News paying out bigtime for those in the know. [Paddy Power via MCV]

The sexiest of the bunch are the USB PC ones above, which have 30mm driver units, and inbuilt microphones with the ability to mute, making them ideal for gaming. They come in black, gold and red.

Seen here in blue, the DR-320DPV is just like the previous model, but without a mute function. It also has a volume control though, which could be handy—and comes in gold, blue, red and black. The pink ones below are the DR-310DPV model, which are also available in white, silver and green—and as you can see from the slender band, are aimed at the laydees. It's got a separate volume control, with the microphone located in the headphones. [Sony Insider via Uber Gizmo]

What you lose versus the 7G to cut the price to $100 is the wrist rest (eh), along with my two favorite features, honestly—two built-in USB ports and audio jacks, which I think are pretty much worth the extra $50 to step up to the 7G, for convenience alone. Amazon's got it now for pre-sale.

STEELSERIES INTRODUCES NEW MECHANICAL GAMING KEYBOARD THE 6Gv2
Modeled After the Award-Winning SteelSeries 7G, The New 6Gv2 is the Straight to the Point Gaming Keyboard Option

HANOVER – March 2, 2010 – SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, today, during CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, introduced the SteelSeries 6Gv2 keyboard. Designed with 18-karat gold-plated mechanical switches, the keyboard offers quicker reaction times and advanced key combinations for more Actions Per Minute and a lifetime more than 10 times that of conventional keyboards.

Like the SteelSeries 7G, the new keyboard utilizes a powerful buffer-system created specifically for gaming, supporting as many simultaneous key presses as there are keys on the keyboard. The "anti-ghosting" feature allows users in first person shooter games to move, crouch, aim, fire and even check the scoreboard, simultaneously. The SteelSeries G product line is the only series of keyboards on the market that allows this type of functionality all at once.

"We've been watching professional teams such as Fnatic, SK Gaming, Evil Geniuses and others win grand slam tournaments with the 7G as their weapon of choice and have seen it recognized as one of the most impressive performance keyboards on the gaming market. Keeping that rockstar mentality, we designed the slimmed down SteelSeries 6Gv2 to pack the same punch without compromising response time, durability or performance." said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries CEO.

The new keyboard will incorporate SteelSeries' Media Controls allowing quick access to volume, mute and other audio controls. Features not present in the keyboard, compared to the SteelSeries 7G, are the audio ports for headphone-in and microphone-out, the two USB ports as well as the removable plastic handrest.

The mechanical tactile system is ergonomically designed to ensure ease-of-use, while the no-click switches and iron-infused plastic makes SteelSeries G Series of keyboards both comfortable and durable. The SteelSeries 6Gv2 also has a switch lifetime of 50 million operations, which is more than 10 times the lifespan of a typical "membrane" keyboard known for a maximum of only 1-5 million total keystrokes in a lifetime.

The SteelSeries 6Gv2 Keyboard is available now for pre-sale at Amazon.com for an MSRP of $99.99 USD.

[SteelSeries]

The game, which is to the console version of ACII what the original Grand Theft Auto is to GTAIV, features a top-down viewpoint. The goal is to seek out fellow assassins who you're playing over WiFi and...assassinate them. You sneak around by blending in with civilians.

Sound fun? Well, it's free for now but bumps up to $2.99 after 48 hours, so get on it! [iTunes Link]

As best we can guess, Natal will be making its way to Xboxes sometime this fall. That means we've still got a good deal of waiting ahead of us, so every once in a while it's nice to have a reminder of why we're so excited. February's reminder: this video of Natal perfectly tracking a dude dancing during the requisite playground ball demo game.

The video isn't as much of a slam dunk on the lag factor. At some points it looks like there's a definite delay between the dancer's movements and those of his avatar on screen, and at other times the lag seems imperceptible. It's hard to say for sure. But as for the motion capture itself, even in low light situations, it appears to be undeniably smooth. [Project Natal Games - Thanks, Jordan!]

Despite its gradual decline on account of downloadable demos and general console popularity (if you don't have one, one of your friends does), the in-store kiosk is still going strong—walk into any Best Buy or GameStop, and you can play a Wii, a PS3, and an Xbox, or even a PSP and a DS. And just like in the 80s and 90s, the kiosk's chances of the coveted trifecta of retail demo gaming (switched on, connected to working controllers, and playing a non-demo version of a game without time limits) hover at around 10%.

Anyway, Kombo's rounded up visual history of some of the most memorable console demo stations, and I defy any of you to make it through without suffering through at least two military grade Circuit City line-battle flashbacks. It's my turn, you turd. [Kombo]

We've already seen XCM's chrome case for the Xbox 360, but it somehow looks a bit better suited for the PS3's lines. Not that I'd spend $70 to gussy up my PS3, but still, it's better than the 360's. [Total Console via Technabob]

In typical patent jargon, the document says:

In one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, a video game or other application displays an image of a steering wheel. Such display may be on the same screen as one that displays other information such as a race course or other environment through which the vehicle may be maneuvered in a simulated fashion, or it may be on a different screen. The steering wheel display is, in one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, displayed on a screen that is touch sensitive. The touch-sensitive functionality of the screen is used in at least some exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementations to allow the video game player to control the position of the steering wheel displayed on the screen. The displayed vehicle steering wheel position, in turn, is used to control the travel motion or direction of the vehicle being simulated. The resulting simulation provides a realistic input control interface obtainable using relatively inexpensive and compact input devices such as those available on conventional portable or other video game play and/or simulation platforms.

It'd do what the Wii did to racing games with the steering wheel peripheral. It's instantly more accessible to non-gamers, which is what Nintendo's all about these days. Sigh. [GoRumors]

The original Final Fantasy includes the five bonus dungeons, The Soul of Chaos pack and The Labyrinth of Time, added to later editions of the game. While Final Fantasy II contains the five bonus dungeons added with the Soul of Rebirth and Arcane Labyrinth pack.

[Kotaku]

The 100-book package features works from Shakespeare and Mark Twain and it's 20 bucks. Mercifully, you can adjust the text size, meaning if you want it to be readable, you'll be able to scale it up to something like four words per screen. I'm sorry, but reading on a backlit screen with a resolution of 256x192 spread across 4.2 inches sounds like the quickest way to a migraine ever. Actually, that could be the best excuse for getting out of school ever. "My eyes are bleeding from reading so much!" [Kotaku, Bloomberg]

The GeForce 310 is the same as the GeForce 210, using the GT218 core; the GeForce 315 uses the same GT216 core as the GT 220; and the GT 340 is basically a GT 240. And then there's the GT 320 and GT 330, which use the G92b core, which has roots going back to the GeForce 8800 GT (a card that debuted in 2007).

Man, those new Fermi-powered chips can't come fast enough. [PC Perspective]